Porn crackdown to address ‘epidemic of violence’ against women and girls, says Lowestoft MP
The Crime and Policing Bill, brought forward by the Government in February last year, is now in its final stages before becoming law
Porn crackdown to address ‘epidemic of violence’ against women and girls, says MP
The Government’s crackdown on pornography will help address the ‘epidemic of violence’ against women and girls, an MP has said.
The Crime and Policing Bill, brought forward by the Government in February last year, is now in its final stages before becoming law, with amendments being discussed by the Commons and the Lords.
It promises to address ongoing problems across a range of issues, including retail worker assault, child criminal exploitation, knife crime and porn addiction.
Jess Asato, the MP for Lowestoft, has contributed significantly to the process, having suggested a range of amendments calling for tougher measures around pornography, some of which have been incorporated into the final text.
“Online pornography is not just entertainment,” she said, “it has become a harmful form of education.
“It promotes the idea that pain for women is pleasure for men. It instils the notion that to be close to a woman is to dominate or degrade her.”
According to a December report by the National Centre for Violence Against Women & Girls and Public Protection (NCVPP), online child sexual abuse and exploitation rose by 26 per cent in 2024, to 51,672 offences.
An Institute for Addressing Strangulation survey of more than 2,300 people also suggested that about 35 per cent of adults, both men and women, reported being strangled or choked at least once during consensual sex.
Among the new measures are outright bans on pornographic content depicting strangulation or suffocation, performers roleplaying as children and stepincest.
The MP said the changes addressed the porn industry’s fuelling of ‘the epidemic of violence against women and girls, encouraging a sexual interest in children, and facilitating commercial sexual exploitation, including trafficking’.
The bill would further grant the Government greater powers to demand porn websites to proactively verify the age and consent of those featured on their sites, as well as allow for the retrospective withdrawal of that consent.